21 January 2016

A British judge has published a report on the 2006 death of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, saying President Vladimir Putin
probably approved a plan by the Russian security service to kill him
with poison. Here is a timeline of events surrounding the case:

— 2000: Litvinenko flees Russia and seeks political asylum in Britain, which was granted the following year.

The Obama Administration and the Vatican condemned the Islamic State group Wednesday for razing Iraq's
oldest Christian monastery, a 1400-year-old structure that survived
assaults by nature and man for centuries before it was deliberately
destroyed by extremists.

At the United Nations, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said reducing St. Elijah's monastery in Mosul to a field of rubble was malicious and misguided. The Associated Press confirmed the news with exclusive satellite images published early Wednesday.

This one is
5,000 times bigger than outcast Pluto and billions of miles farther
away, say scientists who presented "good evidence" for a
long-hypothesized Planet X on Wednesday.

The gas giant is thought to be almost as big as its nearest planetary neighbor Neptune, quite possibly with rings and moons. It's so distant that it would take a mind-blowing 10,000 to 20,000 years to circle the sun.

The attack on the Bacha Khan University in northwestern Pakistan
on Wednesday, which killed 20 people and was claimed by a breakaway
Taliban faction, is the latest in a series of attacks spanning more than
a decade.

The attacks, which have killed tens of thousands of civilians and security personnel, have been claimed by thePakistaniTaliban and other militants, who are deeply opposed to Islamabad's decision to partner with the United States againstal-Qaidain the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The co-ed Bacha Khan University in Pakistan,
attacked by Islamic militants on Wednesday, was named for a prominent
secular activist and ally of Mahatma Gandhi, and embodied much of what
the extremists revile.

The four attackers killed 18 students and two teachers before being gunned down by security forces in an attack that revived painful memories of the assault on a nearby army-run school in Peshawar just over a year ago, which left some 150 people dead, mainly children.